Green Caffeen Launch Strategic Partnership With Wollongong City Council

Parliamentary Secretary for the Illawarra Gareth Ward MP has today joined with the Lord Mayor of Wollongong Gordon Bradbery AM and representatives from Green Caffeen for the launch of a new partnership between Wollongong City Council and Green Caffeen to reduce single use coffee cup waste within Wollongong and the Illawarra.

Mr Ward said that he was extremely pleased to be supporting the expansion of the Green Caffeen initiative across our region.

“Green Caffeen has been a very popular addition to our region,” he said.

“The City of Wollongong and Green Caffeen are today launching a strategic partnership with the aim of reducing single use coffee cup waste with the aim of being the first major city to have a mass adoption of cafes offering an exchangeable coffee cup scheme.

“The partnership is aiming to have 80% of all cafes located within the Wollongong LGA working together to provide coffee drinkers with an accessible, convenient way to consume their daily coffee other than with a single use cup.

“Damien and Martin from Green Caffeen are doing a terrific job in Kiama and other areas across the State to spread the word about this fantastic initiative and I am very pleased to see Wollongong City Council come on board through this strategic partnership – it’s a win for our local environment and a win for the Wollongong community,” Mr Ward concluded.

Green Caffeen said: “The Term Single Use was the most common phrase of 2018 and we are over the moon to see local council tackle single use coffee cup consumption not with a stick, but with a carrot! Damien from Green Caffeen said.

“Being Illawarra locals, we live and breathe the coastal lifestyle, but unfortunately this is where single use plastic pollution is most visible. We congratulate Wollongong Council for seeing the value that Green Caffeen can bring to the coffee drinkers and the cafe community of Wollongong & the Illawarra,” said Martin from Green Caffeen.

“Green Caffeen was born out of our frustrations to hang onto and use our own reusable coffee cup, we were determined to find a simple, sustainable solution that would leave our world a cleaner, greener place for generations to come, and we are proud to be achieving this so far!” Martin added.

“The success of our generation will not be determined upon the speed and convenience we created for fast paced consumption, but by the way we deal with the significant impacts single use plastic items have upon our world and look towards more sustainable but still convenient ways to consume. That is exactly what Green Caffeen is!” Damien concluded.

Wollongong City Lord Mayor Cr Gordon Bradbery AM said: “We’re proud to support smaller businesses through the iAccelerate initiative. It’s important that we reduce, reuse or avoid single-use resources in our lifestyles today,” he said.

“Our Council’s Waste and Resource Recovery Strategy aims to avoid or reduce the creation of waste. Providing our community with opportunities, education and advice on how to support sustainable waste management is key to achieving this.

“I commend Green Caffeen for their endeavours in diverting the huge number of single-use, disposable coffee cups which currently go straight into landfill,” Lord Mayor concluded.